Start Strong, Finish Strong

Asking price: Five million dollars. Total number of photos: 61—most of which are at least halfway decent. And yet, the listing agent chose to lead off their sales pitch with what appears to be a blurry photo of a paper printout of a flyer showing a satellite view of the home. Wow.

And to close things off, they give us… this.

I’m left with so many questions…

Where did the rest of the wall go? What is that strange black thing in the middle? Is the listing agent seriously going to make over $100,000 for this level of effort?

8 Commentson "Start Strong, Finish Strong"

I agree the photo selection leaves much to be desired – 2 *dozen* pics of the area and… sunsets?! But I’m more disturbed by what’s shown in photo No. 26, along with Nos. 13 and 14. The first shows a sudden drop off fairly near the house. The latter 2 seem to show the view down from that drop off. Really? The yard is practically falling into the ocean already, it’s in the biggest earthquake zone in the country, and they want $5M for it? Hmm… I’ve still got options on that bridge. Maybe I ought to head to LA to scam… er, look for… prospective buyers.

I did some research and found this site: http://foreshock.wordpress.com/significant-la-area-earthquakes-1769-present/. From the late ’80s up until the Northridge quake of ’94, the one that collapsed freeways, there was a significant quake at least once a year, some years having several. It was 14 years after Northridge before there was another significant quake in the area, and that one was in a 180′ opposite direction from LA than this Santa Barbara house is. Note this place was built a year after Northridge, so it’s never undergone a major quake. No doubt tons of smaller ones, but not a biggie.

OK, what if it weren’t badly situated? Other than lackluster landscaping for such a big price tag, it’s a nice looking place. I love the amount of sun and space and the view is (literally?) to die for. I adore the oval room at the top of the stairs! Want!!

If I were the agent, I’d dump almost all of the first 2 dozen photos. But I wold still start with photo 3; show garage pic 59 along with the kitchen/laundry photos (utility theme), sandwiching them within “pretty” areas of the house; and finish with either photo 8 or 10. When there’s already the huge built-in drawback of an earthquake potentially chucking the whole thing into the Pacific, it behooves an agent to show the property in its absolute best light and this ain’t it.

I love it when people from outside of California think we are all going to fall into the sea. Houses don’t fall into the sea from earthquakes, they fall in from poor drainage, poor soil, and ocean activity. This listing agent did a terrible job but this property is irreplaceable, there is a limited number of truly ocean front home in Santa Barbara. There are some areas further to the south with cliff-side erosion, but this area is not one of them.

@Paul: Earthquakes *never* dump anything in the ocean? OK, my bad, I assumed that if there was continuing erosion right near a structure that any big assault on the land might make it, and any accompanying structure, collapse further.

So maybe I was wrong about seasides and earthquakes, but there’s always that cliff-side erosion. Just because it hasn’t happened here yet doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t. I hope not, since you mention the limited numbers of places available. I don’t recall exactly where they’ve been, but there’ve been several videos in the news over the last couple of years showing very, very nice homes going down as the nearby cliff or hill gives way. At least this one wouldn’t have far to fall, if that’s any reassurance.

If I were utterly determined to find some reason not to take this place, I could always call in the tsunami fear for back-up. Hey, as Judy Tenuta would say, “It could happen!”

I pretty much skipped the scenery and went right to the inside pics. My first thought was that it seemed like it was built in the 90s but styled in the 80s. The tiled kitchen counter made me sad. The bathroom was pretty with all the marble but the layout (in a house with that pricetag) made me extra sad. All the wood floors and the architecture made me happy though. It is a pretty house, but if I were a potential buyer I would offer closer to 4m and cite the need for a serious kitchen and yard remodel.